Or so the following JoongAng Ilbo piece was entitled. It also included a cool cutaway schematic:
Sphere: Related Content[Lee Yeong-jong, Kim Jeong-uk: JoongAng Ilbo] Mr. L, who visited North Korea not so long ago on business, witnessed a surprising scene on the road linking downtown Pyongyang with Sunan Air Base. In the early morning, a long line of residents could be seen leading up to near a hill about 1km off the main road, where it then suddenly vanished. Thousands of male and female laborers and soldiers in uniform were entering this one area as if they were being sucked into a black hole. The area where the progression disappeared seemed suspicious, as there were no facilities of any kind; just armed guards carrying red flags. Mr. L’s suspicions were cleared up only when he returned to Seoul and authorities explained to him that the place “was an underground facility presumed to be where North Korea produces munitions.” During a conversation with members of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee on Friday, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said the underground tunnel in Kilju, North Hamgyeong Province was one of these underground facilities constructed all across North Korea.
Underground fortresses everywhere —> According to relevant authorities, North Korea has built military-related underground facilities in 8,200 places. North Korea is also moving major facilities beneath the earth, having moved about 180 major munitions factories underground in the late 1990s. There are even air bases where runways penetrate whole mountains. North Korea is evaluated at being among the world’s best at constructing underground facilities.
An intelligence official said Friday, “North Korean underground facilities larger than a set standard have been under joint U.S.-South Korean surveillance for the last 10 years… When there’s a lot of activity, such as a large amount of dirt and sand resulting from digging, the site becomes a target of intense surveillance.”
North Korea has also turned a tidy profit from its ditch digging. In 1998, a U.S. spy satellite (KH-11) picked up thousands of soldiers conducting work at an underground facility at Kumchang-ni. In order to pay a confirmation to the site, which was suspected to be a nuclear facility, the U.S. paid “the world’s greatest admission fee” of 600,000 tons of rice, but an inspection team turned up nothing other than an empty cave.
North Korea spends a lot on building and maintaining underground facilities. Its underground munitions factories, the building of which began full-scale in the 1970s, suffer from serious problems due to the country’s antiquated power grid. This is related to the fact that the power grid losses about 30 percent of the North’s real annual electricity consumption of roughly 12 billion kWh (Unification Ministry figure). Intelligence officials figure there have also been a string of large-scale disasters involving explosives at the underground munitions plants, where the environment is poor due to dampness and other factors.
Kilju, according to NIS —> During a closed-door talk on Friday, NIS head Ko Young-kooc said, “South Korea and the U.S. have been monitoring signs of digging at a tunnel of indeterminate use in the Kilju area from the late 1990s.” He reported, however, “There is no evidence as of yet of signs of a nuclear test.” According to ruling and opposition lawmakers with the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, Ko reported, “Some media reports that claimed signs had been detected of preparations for a nuclear test, like indications the tunnel in Kilju was being sealed up and a viewing stand constructed, were not factual.”
All Ko would say was, “The U.S. used to conduct underground nuclear tests in vertical and horizontal tunnels, and India and Pakistan did the same… The Kilju area has a rock floor, so it’s a good environment for a nuclear test.” He said, however, “For it to be for a nuclear test, we need to detect an observatory and additional facilities and a lot of people and supplies, but we haven’t detected any of this.”
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I can’t find the link yet, but there was a good article a year or so ago about one of these underground facilities. It had statements from defectors — I believe some claiming to have been members in the communities that couldn’t leave the places. I vaguely remember perhaps one had been an engineer. I think one or more said that the only time they got to leave was on the death of relatives or things like that. The idea was that whole towns were cut into the mountains, and the workers worked hard, but were fairly well taken care of since they had to give up their lives outside once put into the secret towns — which included schools, hospitals, and what they would expect out of a normal place — minus the starvation deaths others had to live with in the 1990s (and now).
[...] iguing to read problems like these because they indicate the joys of rational discussion. The Marmot? ™s Hole ?? ?€?N.K. has 547km of underground tunnels?€™ [...]
Are the North Koreans following in the footstep of the GREAT MARMOT the hole dweller?
Something else I read once talked about how all this underground building was a direct result of the air attacks on supply lines suffered starting in the early days of the Korean War. One of the more interesting things is about mobile, underground artillery positions where the guns can be taken out, fired, and put back — hopefully before US air strikes or counter-battery fire could take them out.
I’ve heard before from the US military that they could handle NK’s artillery superiority by out current counter-battery technology, but this question of caves/tunnels has me wondering….
They’re building Baby Milk Factories. For the kids, you know.
I think it likely that the NorK conventional artillery tubes immediately north of the DMZ are in caverns, from which they can be fired through apertures on preselected targets without ever having to be physically rolled out in the open.
If such apertures cannot be detected by friendly ground forward observers (I expect the North has deliberately located them whereever possible with this in mind), then they are almost invulnerable to unobserved US/ROK field artillery counterbattery fire (in my somewhat-informed-but-still- speculative opinion).
However, conventional artillery “tubes” are limited in their firing rate after the first minute, otherwise the gun barrels overheat with negative consequences (such as the rounds and/or powder charges “cooking off” prematurely during reloading).
So anything close to the vaunted “25,000 rounds a minute” headed south of the DMZ can only be achieved by the use of a large number of truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, of which the North has several models based on original Soviet designs. Fired from open racks, these don’t have the overheating limitation, but because of backblast and consequent overpressure and fumes such systems would have to be driven out into the open and fired, before then presumably being reversed back into the caves for reloading.
I expect these rocket launcher systems are probably what your contact (US army artillery officer?) was referring to as being vulnerable to counterbattery. Marmot got interested in some of the specifics of this grisly business a while back and did some postings on it if you recall.
The rockets can be fired rapidly but not all at once (you’ve probably seen newsreel/video footage of such systems being fired). Also I’m pretty sure the Soviet models can’t be fired with the crew remaining in the cab; they presumably have to dismount and set up a remote firing system.
Since the NorK Army is undoubtedly aware of this weakness I would expect them to compensate by intensively training the crews in rapid firing drill. (How do you say “shoot and scoot” in Korean?) Could be even that the North has refined the crew cab protection to allow the systems to be fired while the crew remains in the cab (as with the US MLRS system). However, it’s more likely they’ve simply just prepared sandbag positions and wiring for the firing circuits out in the open, at preselected and rehearsed firing points. Crews drive up, crank the rocket racks 90 degrees to the side if needed (I think some models can fire straight ahead over the cab, not sure of this); they then dismount, hook up the wiring, and let it rip.
I hope they all get to fire some live rounds at least once a year or so, dry firing drill gets boring and the one thing Nork shouldn’t be short of is ammunition.
Effective counterbattery fire assumes that US/ROK artillery units have already deployed to their own positions in a period of crisis and are on high alert, literally with the crews standing by the guns with the first rounds loaded and succeeding rounds with the powder charges already cut and prepared. Even then they’d have to work fast to try to catch the trucks out in the open; one assumes that we’ve already identified the likely target areas, but the last minute adjustment of final firing calculations might still be needed once a target is identified.
The US MLRS system is computerized with GPS and automated rapid input of data for firing. So it can move to any position quickly (has to be fired from a relatively flat position I assume), elevate, enter the data, fire, and then move again. As a non-fixed target. this (and their relative precision at hitting targets compared to Soviet rocket systems) are the reasons they have an advantage.
I think (not positive) that their ammunition supply vehicle follows them with equal mobility and can reload automatically (from vehicle to vehicle) without having to dismount either crew. Both vehicles have armor protection sufficient to stop much shrapnel damage; plus the NorK artillery and rocket systems wouldn’t know where they are initially, and then would have a hard time tracking them as they move rapidly to different firing positions.
(So you can be sure they would be priority targets for NorK infiltrators; all it probably takes is one RPG antitank rocket round in the right place to damage them enough to take them out of action).
In counterbattery work, split seconds would be involved. And artillery rounds fired for very long range spend a surprisingly long amount of time “on the way” (at least it always seemed that way to this interested observer). There’s nothing I know of that you can do to cut down this time, so when this is added to the other probable reaction time by US/ROK operators, it might prove be tough to catch the trucks out in the open, at least in the initial stages of a NorK artillery/rocket attack.
I would guess the non-nuclear version of the US/ROK plan for attacking the NorK tube artillery cave positions is with strings of dumb bombs from B52’s or B1’s, to try to collapse the caves or seal the openings. Followed by individual tactical acft strikes with precision bombs for any defiant survivors who continue to serve their guns, no doubt under the watchful eyes of portraits of KIS and KJI. (Not what I’d want to see in my last moments on earth but I suppose tastes vary in these matters).
The “correct” military solution is to try to take them out pre-emptively when intelligence tells you they are gearing up to attack, but since these systems are already “in place” for war I’m not at all sure we would know this prior to the first rounds from the north impacting. And of course any “pre-emption” by US is subject to political considerations anyway.
After the Israelis pre-empted the Egyptians in the 67 war, I gather Kissinger insisted that the Israelis had to wait in Oct 73 and absorb the initial attack at that time for political reasons; this of course ended up costing them lives. God help any US President who allows this to happen to our forces in Korea for similar reasons, so the sooner we get our forces moved to their new positions down south and out of conventional artillery range the better for everyone concerned.
I don’t know if the US 2nd ID and 8th Army field artillery (both conventional and MLRS) are to be moved south under the repositioning plan or not; I’d have to go back and look at the original announcements on the subject. Since any future ROK administration will almost certainly be adamant that no pre-emption is to be allowed under any circumstances, it seems only fair to me that their military should be the one to remain along the DMZ and absorb the initial attack if any (let’s hope naturally that “sunshine” will continue to prevail).
Paul,
I believe you once said you’ve never been to Korea, yet you have an eerie knowledge of NORK capabilities that usually only those who worked in the intel field (RJ-135, U2 etc) would have. Either that, or you do some damned good speculating.
One thing to remember is the fact that no one knows for sure what percentage of those NORK launchers and artillery pieces are still fully functional. Although if you’re a Seoul dweller like Mamot, even 10% is still too high a number, eh?
How thoughtful of nK to dig their own mass graves. I wonder if Kim Jong-Il would have a beard like Saddam when we pull him from his rat hole.
On a serious note, going underground and using other passive air defense measures (decoys, camouflage, dispersion, etc.) is a very cheap, effective low-tech solution to mitigate the high-tech problem of UN airpower. They’ve obviously studied successes and failures in air defense from the past 70 years or so.
Concerning the artillery, nK has relied on quantity to make up for quality. The barrels can only be expected to fire a couple dozen rounds (if that) before the actions fail or tubes explode due to a combination of poor metallurgy and defective/outdated ammunition. I wonder if they know a clever way to overcome this challenge…I’d use a creeping barrage followed closely by ground assault, like in the trenches of WWI. Knowing most of your tubes will fail or be killed by counterbattery, you have to make the most in planning the first rounds fired downrange.
I’m just an idiot though; let’s wait for some of the clever experts to devise a plan to bring racism into this thread.
Paul, great post. I will add that there are some things that can be done to shorten the time on target for artillery rounds. Your C4I infrastructure is key. Modern counterbattery radar hooked into a digital C4I network to a digitally configured FDC provides an almost instantaneous targeting solution. On the Paladin (M109A6), that solution then gets instantaneously transfered to the gun, which automatically sets the traverse and elevation. Depending on how you choose to engage, the Paladin could fire three rounds following three different azimuths so that all three rounds impact simultaneously. In other words, the one gun does the work of half a battery.
Unfortunately, the US Army was not allowed to purchase the Crusader, which can do a lot more faster, to include firing 10 rounds in the first minute. The South Korean K9 is similar to the Paladin and can also lay three rounds on target simultaneously. The K9 has an advantage over the Paladin in that it has longer range, dual calibre, cheaper. All told, detection to impact can theoretically be 3-5 minutes. That time can be shortened if you only want one round to impact, but three is better as you have a better chance of catching an MLR that is trying to shoot and scoot.
To answer your question concerning the US artillery move to the Osan-P’yongt’aek area, yes, that is the plan. It won’t happen right away, though. 2ID is in the process of preparing the South Koreans to take over the counterfire role. Once the South Koreans get trained to US standards, the South Koreans will completely assume the counterfire role and US artillery systems will pull back.
Good comments from Paul. The Maginot Line, of course, also had miles of tunnels and, for its day, all the bells and whistles that we can expect from the NorK tunnels. Great defensive line if the only way to get to Pyongyang is up the Peninsula. But military technology has changed since then, and both the United States and Korea have real Marine Corps, not to mention farmore competent Air Forces. The NorKs have the advantage in that, under the U.N. charter, UNC (hence CFC and USFK) must wait until either the NorKs have attacked, or there is no doubt that the attack is coming, to launch countermeasures. But once that CFC counterattack comes, its effects will be biblical.
Good comments from Paul. The Maginot Line, of course, also had miles of tunnels and, for its day, all the bells and whistles that we can expect from the NorK tunnels. Great defensive line if the only way to get to Pyongyang is up the Peninsula. But military technology has changed since then, and both the United States and Korea have real Marine Corps, not to mention farmore competent Air Forces. The NorKs have the advantage in that, under the U.N. charter, UNC (hence CFC and USFK) must wait until either the NorKs have attacked, or there is no doubt that the attack is coming, to launch countermeasures. But once that CFC counterattack comes, its effects will be biblical.
Underground Nuclear Factories in North Korea
The Marmot points us to an article in the Joongang Ilbo (Korean here, English here) which appears to be a leak from a South Korean government official — whose motive seems to be to downplay reports that the North is…
Daily Linklets 16th May
Busy Japanese, Tunneling Koreans, Rich Chinese, Strange Thais, Democratic Iranians, Soon-to-be-sued Iraqis, and more, all on today’s Daily Linklets
Thanks Haksaeng, I was hoping an artilleryman would chime in here.
Are the Paladin and/or K9 EMP-shielded?
Not a specific answer to EMP question but an interesting discussion.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm
The article I was thinking about but can’t find again mentioned the artiller pieces being on rails to swivel out in the open to fire and back into the mountain. I seem to also remember them saying something about other pieces being positioned where they can fire over a mountain range but use the range as even more natural protection from counter-fire, but the main idea was that the system of caving was so extensive and built for speed as well as cover, it would be difficult to knock out from afar.
The co-equal idea in the article focused on the factories built inside mountains with their self-contained towns — so NK could continue to produce war supplies after the start of hostilities — a lesson they learned shortly after the start of the last war.
I think the point about quality of equipment and munitions is key. Just as with fighting spirit.
I see no way North Korea’s military hasn’t suffered great set backs in both since the fall of the 1990s — even if the military and soldiers have been given the highest priority in resources. Especially the fighting men — how can you watch your nation starve to death without losing some fighting spirit?
But, I wonder how effective North Korea could be with its defensive measures and the level of equipment it has……
In Vietnam, we didn’t have the same level of intel gathering and precision strikes. We couldn’t watch a missile fly right into the tunnel opening as we can now.
But, how far away from the Vietnam model have we come? They were able to withstand concentrated bombing with relatively simple tunnels even if elaborate tunnel systems.
North Korea has had the time and resources to build stronger tunnels. Korea’s mountain terrain helps. And although NK doesn’t have a jungle to hide tunnel holes in, it can secure them better, and it can use means to hide them unless you have eyes on the ground looking.
I don’t imagine a war with NK would take very long. I don’t think North Korean society can withstand a war. I think any realistic war setting would also be fast and furious, thus causing the will of the North Korean people to be even more important. I can only really imagine war coming at the hands of a North Korean decision to start on, and I think they would unleash all hell for the most effect as their best chance to win, probably using some WMD for shock effect, which in turn would greenlight the strongest possible response from the US (not with WMD, but with constant attacks with all we have short of WMD), and after the initial gains from suprise and shock/awe, I think NK would quickly fold.
I wonder if North Korea’s land forces would even make it very far past the DMZ beforing losing initiative?
Another thing I’ve wondered about is this —- if NK decides to go for broke, what are the chances, as the time to fight ticks to “go”, some important elements of the NK military will defect/revolt?
If survival has been a key element in the top layers of the North Korean system, how hard would it be for an important NK military official to conclude launching a massive strike against SK would mean the end to NK?
I used to play a wargame in which I would use FAE against Soviet submarine caves. The overpressure would either splatter everyone inside the cave against the walls or suck all the air out so they couldn’t breathe. Either way, I win!
US, I think you raise a good point.
There are a few ways that things could play out in NK: the status quo; negotiated retirement for KJI; a coup; a popular uprising; or the unthinkable (a war).
The people in a position to stage a coup (the military) have so far shown no sign to the outside world that they are contemplating such a thing (not that you would want anyone to know before you were ready to do it!); but if the tension went up really quickly, then what?
…Of course, the assumption that something will change is based on what happened in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989-91. But it’s 14 years later, and NK has gone through a massive famine in the mid to late 90s and the emergence of small-scale free markets, and mass attempts at defections; all without anything actually changing.
So far, the status quo has prevailed, and in the absence of tangible signs to the contrary, will probably continue to prevail for the time being. War and negotiated retirement seem unlikely scenarios at this point, the former because its consequences are too grave to imagine, and the latter because why would KJI ever want to voluntarily give up power? (Unless he’s offered an expensive chalet in Switzerland, a promise of protection and no prosecution, a gaggle of babes to wait on him hand and foot, and a lifetime movie rental pass with Blockbuster.) As for a coup, who can predict? It could happen tomorrow, or it might never happen.
But a popular uprising or general collapse seems to be a possibility, what with the apparently relatively free movement of people, goods, and information across the Chinese-NK border, and the apparent spread of information within the North due to a collapse in internal travel controls (according to various recent newspaper and magazine articles).
One of the things I haven’t seen mentioned yet is the logistics problems the North faces just with its artillery systems. The North relies on numerous different artillery systems from Russian D-30 122-mm howitzers and D-20 152-mm howitzers to domestically produced M-1981 170-mm self-propelled guns. Some of these artillery systems designs date back to the 1930s and are systems that are no longer in use anywhere else in the world.
Army logisticians must try to push ammunition to all these systems, as well as trying to keep all these systems operational. How does a unit manage to keep enough spare parts for all these systems to keep them operational? There would have to be some seriously large depot maintenance facilities in the North to keep these things up and running. Some of these parts may have to be machined in the North, which raises into question how many systems are truly operational.
Another issue that hasn’t been raised yet concerns the humidity in these tunnels. I’ve been in several tunnels in Korea and they all have one thing in common–they have a lot of water running in them. That means rust and higher maintenance requirements.
Ammunition isn’t safe, either. Ammunition stored in underground tunnels would require special measures to keep the humidity down or risk degredation of the powder. specialized ammunition, like RAP rounds, require even greater storage requirements.
Bottom line is that there are a lot of things we don’t know about the North, but we can surmise a number of serious challenges they face. How well they overcome these challenges will depend on how much money they are willing to invest and how disciplined the soldiers are when it comes to maintenance.
Two thoughts from what Curious wrote —
One of the great tragedies of the North Korean famine is something I haven’t read anybody in the media or think-tank group mention
Geez, I never even began to think about the outside world’s possible reaction(s), or the possibility that such a large-scale uprising would not succeed.
Internally, the deciding factor would be what the military didthe turning point in these situations often seems to be the point at which soldiers just decide to stop resisting the protestors.
In terms of the outside world, I just sincerely hope that the scenario you’re envisioning (the country’s neighbours standing idly by while all this unfolds) does not materialize, and that, were it to come to such a situation, all parties involved realized that interventionor at the very least not turning back refugees at Panmunjom or Dandongwould be the best solution.
It is easier for me to imagine something like the scenario I outlined than something else. Well, I would say the most likely event along these lines would be a significant uprising in a few pockets that would be quickly crushed by the military. It would be on a scale that would get out to the outside world, but since Pyongyang still controls the flow of information inside NK, it probably wouldn’t have the chance to spark nation wide interest. I would think a general revolt across a few provinces or in several key cities would have to be organized, and I think that is not unthinkable, but unlikely.
Anyway, my point here is really that for the scenario to happen I outlined in the other comment to happen, the NK people revolting would have to be effective enough to keep it alive for more than a week, and probably images of it would need to get outside to the world media. Rwanda, perhaps, wasn’t so much an example of the outside world not caring. It seemed to happen so fast - even if on such a large scale - the world community didn’t catch up, because it is very slow to pull the trigger.
If a revolt does manage to survive past the initial fury of the government backed forces, I can’t predict what will happen. I am pretty sure South Korea would fight to keep any nation(s) from getting involved if they had the slightest hope the North Korean regime was going to be successful in crushing the revolt.
That play alone would make every other nation’s reaction limited or awkward.
The US could set up plans where we omit USFK forces but never the less jump into NK if a prolonged massacre is taking place and the opportunity to step in and put an end to the Kim Jong Il regime and the bloodshed seemed ripe.
Hope for such an event might be very key into whether key military figures in North Korea would back Pyongyang or avoid suppressing the revolt. If unit commanders to generals are convinced the US is coming in no matter what, and the US piped in information that leaders who get their men to lay down their arms will be treated fairly in the next regime, it would probably be easier for them to lay down their arms or turn them on the regime. It might happen on a scale even bigger than in Iraq War II — or it might not and the North Korea army would fight as best it can with a revolt and invasion taking place.
It’s impossible to predict what kind of US force would be necessary. It might be as small as a Haiti or a good sized fighting force.
If it is a good sized force, and it has to come from non-USFK assests because of South Korea’s position on the revolt, I’d hate to be South Korea when the dust settled. I’m trying to imagine what I’d think of my brothers to the south if I were a North Korean having lived in hell and realized SK refused to lift a finger to help me when I needed it most…..It might make regionalism in South Korea return to pre-modern days.
Let’s hope that your speculation is unwarranted.
Regarding information getting into the North, apart from the slow infiltration of ideas via reports about the outside world from returnees from China and smuggled videos and DVDs, I have read that members of the elite listen to VOA now. So there is at least that one potential pipeline.
In the USSR, it took approx 73 years (1917-1990) and the demise (due to death and old age) of the “revolutionary” generation and the “WWII” generation before the ruling elites lost their will to use whatever amount of force is necessary to maintain the system.
Projecting a similar timeline onto the “life history” of the DPRK, 70 years from 1945 gives 2015 as a very approximate date for when internal dissension might reach “critical mass” in DPRK.
Other speculative considerations:
1) the slow infiltration of outside influences due to modern technology (videos, radios, internet) could speed the time up as mentioned above and elsewhere.
2) OTOH, the DPRK gulag system could slow it down (when it is viewed as a “training” method, one that brutalizes both the ruling elites and the soldiers/ secret police/ border guards to cruel punishment and agonizing death).
Not many will risk listening to a smuggled-in radio or watching a video if the penalty for being caught is a bullet in the back of the head and the exile of the family to a prison camp.
I have a slightly different opinion than Paul on the last paragraph. Not so much a different opinion, but a different possibility.
It seems at times, a bullet in the back of the head and exile of a family member doesn’t produce the desired results. I have no idea that the right ingrediants are, but I seem to have gotten the idea from general reading of history in different places at different times, sometimes extreme brutality seeds greater unrest — pushes people to decide enough is enough, even if their family is secure.
My wild assed guess is that the middle ranks of the Korean military from low level officers to middle to high ranking non-officer types have some decent level of potential for subversion if pushed the right way.
Why?
It seems to me
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